


Waking Up

by Java_bean



Series: 500 Follower Fic Requests [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Earth C (Homestuck), John needs to take a shower, M/M, Sleep, but rest assured after this they start a relationship for real, nothing really happens in this so I guess you could say the pair's implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-06 19:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15201359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Java_bean/pseuds/Java_bean
Summary: John hasn't left his bed in days, and has no intention of ever doing so again.  A surprise visit from an equally surprising and concerned friend might help change that.Or at least convince him to eat something.





	Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a request for my friend @royalrastafariannaynays whom I love dearly
> 
> Both Dirk and John aren't characters I'm not as confident in writing, but I really loved trying to write them both together in this! 
> 
> I hope you like reading it! :D

Things have been...not good for you lately. Getting up is hard. Doing things is hard. Even just reaching over to grab your phone so you can assure people you’re alright is hard. 

So you don’t. You don’t do anything. You just lay there.

You’re not even sleeping, you’re just staring as the light leaking through the sliver between your curtains shifts as the day progresses. Your phone buzzes periodically, but you don’t check it. It’s out of your reach.

You feel like shit.

Right now the sun is too bright to look at. You could always get up and close the curtains more, but there’s no way in hell you’re leaving your bed. You don’t have the energy to get up right now. Besides, your bed is warm. 

You throw your blanket over your head and squeeze your eyes shut. 

 

It’s dark when you open your eyes. There’s a pounding in your head that makes you want to scream even though you know that would only make it worse. You grit your teeth and try to bury yourself further into your bed. If your mattress chose this moment to pull a Nightmare on Elm Street and eat you, you don’t think you’d mind. 

The pounding is getting worse. You just want it to go away.

It takes awhile for your sleep-addled brain to comprehend that the pounding isn’t just in your head. It’s at your door.

“It’s open.” You croak. You doubt whoever this douchebag is will be able to hear you over how loud they’re knocking. Your voice cracks from disuse.

The knocking, surprisingly, stops. 

The door bangs against the wall. You pull your head out from under your blanket so you can see who’s barging in and ask them to leave you alone.

“Oh shit.” Dirk stomps down hard on the floor to keep himself from falling.

Well that’s a surprise.

“What the fuck is up with your door?”

“Nothing, it was unlocked.” You mumble. “That’s how unlocked doors are. Did you seriously just try to break down my door?”

“That is a bullshit claim and you have absolutely no proof of that.” He scuffs his shoe against the door frame. “Clearly your door is loose or something.”

That’s a load of bull, but you don’t care enough about this to actually have an argument about it. Besides, this is Dirk, you wouldn’t want to do that even if you were feeling okay. “Clearly. What the hell are you doing here, Dirk?”

He shoves his hands into his pockets. “This is going to sound so fucking fake, but I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d check in and see what’s up.”

“That does sound pretty fake.” You admit. “But I’m fine. Thanks.”

“You sure? Because you look like shit.”

“Dirk, it’s dark and you’re wearing shades. You can’t even see shit.”

“You’re right.” You go blind for a minute as your room is suddenly flooded with light. “And so was I, you _do_ look like shit.”

You groan and throw the blanket back over your head. “Dirk, what the fuck? Go away, I’m trying to sleep.”

“Usually I would.” You can hear him coming closer. His steps are loud in the quiet of your room. “I’m not some asshole who gets his kicks out of barging in and shoving my dick into people’s personal space.”

The bed springs creak, and the mattress gives under his added weight. You scoot over a bit to make room. 

“Thing is, John, no one’s heard from you in days. You just up and fucked right off the grid for awhile. ” Dirk leans back, his arm is slung over your legs like that’s a casual thing to do. It isn’t. “You’ve been doing that a lot, apparently, and that’s not a problem in and of itself, but it’s kinda worrying people, dude.”

You start nudging him with your leg. “Okay, I’ll make sure to text everybody. You can go now.”

“I’m not too sure about that.”

And then your leg is pinned under Dirk and you can’t even move it anymore. You wrench the blanket off your head so you can fix a glare at him. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“It _means_ ,” he says, completely unphased by the way you’re trying to murder him with your eyes, “that I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

“Well why not?” You sit up and try to push him off the bed, but he doesn’t budge. “It’s not like I’m going to do anything, I’m just going back to sleep.”

“That’s exactly it, you’re not doing anything. When was the last time you ate something, John?”

“Uh...” When _was_ the last time you ate? You honestly can’t remember. 

Wow, what the fuck’s up with _that?_

“Shit dude, that’s not supposed to be a hard question.” 

“I know,” you snap, “I’m just trying to remember, give me a minute.”

Dirk shrugs. “Fine, take your time. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

You go quiet while you try to think. Dirk doesn’t say anything, but he stares at you the entire time. Or at least, you think he’s staring at you, his shades are too dark for you to say for sure.

You finally admit defeat. “Fuck.”

“That long, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know.” You’re so hungry the space where your stomach should be feels like it’s completely hollowed out. How did you not notice before this? “What the hell.”

“You’re damn right, what the hell.” Dirk sits up, and your legs are freed. You could probably kick him off your bed if you wanted, but you don’t really care much about that anymore. “You need to eat, John.”

“I know.” You groan. “What, though? I don’t know how to fucking cook.”

“I’d offer, but I have the feeling you have nothing but absolute rat shit for food in your kitchen.” You don’t even remember what you have in your kitchen. “I could order a pizza?”

Your stomach’s growling just at the mention. You suck it in and shove your fist against it in an effort to suppress the noise. “Yes. Pizza. An extra large one with all the toppings on it.” 

“Alright,” Dirk gets out his phone and starts typing in a number, “extra large all topping pizza.”

“Except pineapple and anchovies.” You add quickly. “That gets its own pizza.”

Dirk doesn’t even look up from his phone. “What size do you want that one?”

You only said it as a joke. That’s not really something you’d like to admit, though. Besides, maybe if you’re lucky, Dirk will try to eat it.

Fuck, that would be _hilarious_.

“Medium.”

“Okay.” You just sit and watch as he places the order. He stows the phone back in his pocket. “It should be here in twenty.”

“Twenty minutes?” You don’t know if you can stand another twenty minutes without something in your stomach. “That’s forever from now.”

“Given that it’s pizza, it’s not actually that long of a wait.” He replies. “But I get what you mean. Do you know if you have any snacks, or was I accurate with the rat shit comment?”

“There might be a loose bag of popcorn hiding behind some of the rat shit, but I don’t know for sure.” You lean back against the headboard and blow a couple loose strands of greasy hair out of your face. “I’ll go look for it in a minute.”

“You do that.”

Even with the thought of food as motivation, it takes you a few minutes to get yourself out of bed. Dirk watches you leave and doesn’t say anything. From the corner of your eye you think you can see him reaching for your laptop. 

You drag your feet all the way down the stairs and to the kitchen. The whole place is dark, but you don’t bother turning on any lights. There’s just enough day light filtering in through the windows that it’s not necessary. 

Searching your kitchen takes longer than you thought it would. You’re running on nothing but sleep and excess energy, so every move you make is sluggish and a little more careless than usual. It’s like trying to maneuver your limbs like usual, only they were replaced with warm taffy while you were asleep. 

You have to push past empty cereal boxes and bags of what are probably inedibly stale chips to get to the single bag of popcorn in the very back of your cupboard. The bag goes in the microwave, and the plastic wrap is tossed into your trash. It’s close to overflowing. 

Fuck, you need to clean your kitchen. And go grocery shopping. 

Tomorrow maybe.

You grab a bowl, from the looks of it one of the only clean ones you have left, and dump the popcorn into it. Just looking at it makes the hunger pangs in your stomach worse and you feel slightly light headed. Seriously, how the fuck did you go this long without realizing how hungry you are?

You shake your head and carry the bowl back to your room.

“I’ve got popcorn.” You announce upon entry. Dirk doesn’t acknowledge you, apparently too preoccupied with whatever he’s doing on your laptop. “What are you doing?”

“What’s your opinion on Batman?”  
“He’s no Tick, but he’s alright.” You take a seat on the bed. “Why?”

“I figured we’re probably not going to be doing much, so we may as well watch something while we wait.” He replies. “You’re cool with Batman?”

“Yeah, I’m cool with Batman.” You nod and inch closer to him so you can see the screen better.

Dirk presses play. You put the bowl of popcorn between the both of you and watch Batman fuck some shit up for Gotham’s resident bad guys. You eat over half of the popcorn by yourself.

Your doorbell rings just as the credits start to roll.

“Perfect timing.” Dirk crawls past you and gets off the bed. “Don’t start the next episode without me.”

“Okay. Hey, can you turn the lights off when you get back? They’re bugging me.”

“Yeah, sure.”

While Dirk’s off getting the pizza, you put the bowl with what’s left of the popcorn on the floor. You then make more room on the bed for where you assume the pizza will be. 

You press play when you hear Dirk coming so all he’ll really be missing is the theme song. He’s carrying the pizza boxes in both hands, so he has to elbow the light switch to turn it off. The room goes dark, the only source of illumination is from your screen. 

Dirk lays the pizza boxes on the middle of the bed and climbs back on beside you. You’re opening both boxes the moment they’re put down. 

“Holy shit,” this is probably the hunger talking, but you’re pretty sure this is the best pizza you’ve ever had in your entire god damn life, “Dirk, I’m going to marry this pizza. We’re in love now.”

Dirk snorts. “Alright, you do that.”

He reaches over for a slice of pineapple anchovy hell pizza. “Whoa, are you actually gonna eat that?”

Dirk stops, the pizza inches from his mouth. The weight of the toppings cause the slice to dip slightly. “Yes?”

“What the fuck, Dirk?”

He seems confused about your surprise. He looks at the slice, then at you, and then the slice again. “Fuck you?”

Before you can say anything more about it, he tears into the pizza and devours the whole thing in two bites.

“Dirk, oh my god!” You can’t believe he actually fucking ate it. You didn’t even have to do anything, he just did it. What the fuck. 

You can’t stop laughing. 

“I don’t get what your deal is about me eating this.” Dirk admits as he grabs a second slice. “It’s just a pizza.”

He stares at you while he eats this one, too. 

This doesn’t help you contain your laughter at all. “There is no fucking way that tastes good.”

He shrugs. “It’s alright. Here, you eat it.”

He offers you one, which you push back to him. “No, you can keep it. That one’s all yours, if you want it.”

He takes a bite of the slice he offered you and talks through a mouthful of anchovies and pineapple. “I do.”

You laugh. “Gross.”

You eat two and a half more slices of the other pizza over a period of two episodes of Batman before you have to call it quits. Your stomach feels like it might explode if you even consider picking up another slice. On top of that, all that pizza made you even more tired than you already were.

You groan and lean heavily against Dirk. He doesn’t seemed bothered by this. 

“I take it you’re done, then?” He was finished eating awhile ago.

“Yeah.”

“We should probably put these away.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of you move.

“...later, though.”

“Yeah, later’s good.”

You keep watching the show. You don’t really know what’s going on because you’re having a hard time focusing. Mostly you’re just fighting to keep your eyes open.

You’re so tired.

You don’t know if it’s one or two episodes after you’re done with the pizza that Dirk gets a blanket because he’s cold and offers to share it with you. You accept his offer gladly. 

You don’t know if it’s the same episode or a later one when you realize that Dirk makes a surprisingly good pillow.

You do know that’s the last thought you had before you fall asleep.

 

You wake up later in pitch black and you feel...better than before. Not amazing, not one hundred percent perfect, but still better. A hell of a lot better. 

You feel well rested and warm and full, all of which are good things. 

Whatever you’re snuggled up with right now is also good. You squeeze tighter and bury your face in fabric.

“Well you’re clearly awake.”

Holy shit you forgot it was Dirk.

You disentangle yourself immediately and sit up. “How long was I asleep?”

“A couple hours.” You can just barely make out his shrug in the dark. 

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Late?” There’s some shuffling around. He’s grabbing the pizza boxes. “I should probably go. I’ll throw these in your fridge on my way out.”

Dirk starts to get up.

Before you can think about it, your hand reaches out to grab his arm. “Wait.” 

Surprisingly, he does. “What?”

“Why don’t you stay here? Spend the night?” The words are spilling out of your mouth faster than you can even think of what they mean. “We could watch more Batman and you could sleep on me this time, or I do own pillows if you’d rather use those. And later in the morning we can break out the pizza again and I could make you watch the Tick because I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen it yet and Dirk, that’s a crime to the superhero genre. You need to watch it.”

He’s quiet. 

Your grip tightens unconsciously around his wrist. You don’t want to be alone right now.

“I’d sleep in here?” He finally says.

“Yeah,” you’re so fucking relieved, “unless you wanted to sleep somewhere else like the couch or the floor or something. I probably have a sleeping bag stashed somewhere.”

“In here’s fine. Could you let go of me? I do have to put these in the fridge if we’re eating them tomorrow.”

“Right.” You let go of his wrist. Your palm is sweaty. “Sorry.”

“I’ll be back in a sec.” 

Then he walks out. You breathe a sigh of relief. You don’t know what you would have done if he said no. 

You didn’t realize how much you were craving interaction and physical contact until it was almost gone again.

Dirk comes back just as you get the next episode of Batman up. You have no idea what’s happened for the past however many episodes, but it probably doesn’t matter. You settle in next to him under the blanket. Your head’s leaning against his chest. 

An episode later, your hands meet. Two minutes after that, your fingers intertwine.

An episode and a half after that, Dirk’s snoring next to you. His breath smells god awful. 

Not that you can say much about that. You can’t even remember when you showered last.

You squeeze his hand and put on another episode.

You’re so fucking glad he stayed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this fic, I hope you enjoyed it <3


End file.
